I love the approach. I think the majority of cases these kids need someone to listen, a place to vent that doesn’t look at them as part of the problem or that puts guilt or blame on them for the issues in their lives. On the other hand… there are kids that are beyond this approach. Based on the data presented here…it’s well worth the effort to try.

THE FIRST TIME THAT principal Jim Sporleder tried the New Approach to Student Discipline at Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, he was blown away. Because it worked. In fact, it worked so well that he never went back to the Old Approach to Student Discipline. This is how it went down:

A student blows up at a teacher, drops the F-bomb. The usual approach at Lincoln – and, safe to say, at most high schools in this country – is automatic suspension. Instead, Sporleder sits the kid down and says quietly:

“Wow. Are you OK? This doesn’t sound like you. What’s going on?” He gets even more specific: “You really looked stressed. On a scale of 1-10, where are you with your anger?”

The kid was ready. Ready, man! For an anger blast to his face….”How could you do that?” “What’s wrong with you?”…and for the big boot…

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You know…I don’t want to seem partisan, HOWEVER, if this was an action by a Republican all hell would break lose and we WOULD NEVER hear the end of how the Republicans are taking our freedoms, war mongers, fascist etc etc. Yet the current POTUS has abused his power through Executive Order and signed more bills into Law that restrict our freedoms and give the government more power than ANY Republican. Not even the Patriot Act compares to some of the nefarious things going on. Yet… the current Left loving Press and current POTUS’ blind supporters seem to want to just keep their heads in the sand…or someplace else dark and dank. I wish more people would look beyond their front yards once in a while to see what’s happening. I am in no way a conspiracy theorist…these things are real. Like HR 347 which states“Current law makes it illegal to enter or remain in an area where certain government officials (more particularly, those with Secret Service protection) will be visiting temporarily if and only if the person knows it’s illegal to enter the restricted area but does so anyway. The bill expands current law to make it a crime to enter or remain in an area where an official is visiting even if the person does not know it’s illegal to be in that area and has no reason to suspect its illegal. (It expands the law by changing “willfully and knowingly” to just “knowingly” with respect to the mental state required to be charged with a crime.”

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Eric Bolling (Fox Business Channel’s Follow the Money) test drove the Chevy Volt at the invitation of General Motors.

For four days in a row, the fully charged battery lasted only 25 miles before the Volt switched to the reserve gasoline engine.

Eric calculated the car got 30 mpg including the 25 miles it ran on the battery. So, the range including the 9 gallon gas tank and the 16 kwh battery is approximately 270 miles.

It will take you 4 1/2 hours to drive 270 miles at 60 mph. Then add 10 hours to charge the battery and you have a total trip time of 14.5 hours. In a typical road trip your average speed (including charging time) would be 20 mph.

According to General Motors, the Volt battery holds 16 kwh of electricity. It takes a full 10 hours to charge a drained battery. The cost for the electricity to charge the Volt is never mentioned so I looked up what I pay for electricity. I pay approximately (it varies with amount used and the seasons) $1.16 per kwh.

16 kwh x $1.16 per kwh = $18.56 to charge the battery.

$18.56 per charge divided by 25 miles = $0.74 per mile to operate the Volt using the battery.

Compare this to a similar size car with a gasoline engine only that gets 32 mpg.

$3.19 per gallon divided by 32 mpg = $0.10 per mile.

(Don’t forget the pollution produced to make the electricity is probably very comparable to the pollution emitted by the gasoline car. That is just a trade-off rather than an advantage.)

The gasoline powered car cost about $15,000 while the Volt costs $46,000.

So this Administration wants us to pay 3 times as much for a car that costs more than 7 times as much to run and takes 3 times as long to drive across country.

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What do you think about the balance between government control over personal risk and responsibility and the government finding a need to “provide protection” from that risk?

First off… I will say I am very much a Libertarian leaning conservative. What I mean by that is I believe in the smallest possible government as truly called for in the Constitution and nothing more. I don’t believe the Constitution is a dynamic living breathing document that changes with the times. In my previous post I posted about how our language is dynamic and appears to be very fluid over time. I don’t believe the Constitution is or should be considered or viewed in the same way. I also believe that we do not need the government to tell us what to eat how much to eat, or anything related to what we wish to consume. I don’t mind there being some restrictions as to age for certain substances just as there is age limits on use of certain machinery or other potentially dangerous devices when there is potential to harm another or another’s property. This video is of John Stossel’s show today titled “Everything Is Ilegal”. Why I usually don’t agree 100% with everything John has to say, I do agree with 80%+. The issues in this video that I’d like to point out that i feel should be most worrisome to most people are those dealing with the EPA or other environmental type organization. I think most people will see those and be surprised at least somewhat…possibly to the point of wanting to find out more information regarding those stories.

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This is a fascinating study of the birth and death of words. I’ve always been a purist when it comes to the English language…though I admit I’m nowhere near where I should be in the use of the English language. As an example, marketing professionals have always created words that seem to flow off the tongue better or seemingly better represent the qualities of a particular product than the more traditional. Case in point, crispy vs. crisp. Crispy wasn’t used until more recently (past 50-60 years) and moisturizer vs. moistener. If you go back to older reference materials you’ll notice these two, amongst many others, simple didn’t exist. This study used 5,195,769 Google eBooks from 1800-2000 representing approximately 4% of all book ever published to see how word usage has changed over time. It’s truly a fascinating study of the linguistic changes to our language stemming from mostly cultural shifts…or are the use of some words responsible for some cultural changes? You decide.

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I’m just getting started…I have built this to allow me to express myself on virtually any topic. Plus it saves my personal relationships on Facebook and other places where I have friends that might not appreciate my perspectives. You will find lots of posts ranging from Politics to Science, Medicine, Computers, Electronic Gadgetry, Parenting, Food and Travel.

If you’d like to comment because you agree or disagree or just have something to add, please feel free to do so. All I ask is that you keep it respectful and refrain from using ad hominem attacks on others. I don’t expect everyone to agree with me and I don’t expect that I will agree with you, however let’s have an intellectual discussion about our ideas and try to refrain from getting overly emotional.